CHILDREN’S VOICES IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

Abstract

This paper is a dialogic assessment of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah. The paper argues that the novel has been written to exclude the voices of children through its narrative structure, although the story told revolves around children. The exclusion of children’s voices consequently results in the fragmentation of the realities which the novel presents, leaving the novel itself greatly flawed. To substantiate these claims, the paper identifies what it calls “dialogic junctions” in the text, and shows that it is children who speak at these junctions. The paper then proceeds to show how the novel has been structured to exclude children’s voices, relying on Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism and Eyoh Etim’s infantism for critical ballast. The paper submits, ultimately, that any utterance on human existence from which children’s voices are excluded cannot be complete, and therefore, should not be regarded seriously, since children’s experiences constitute a vital aspect of human reality.